Hunted

being safe, I meant because of the Raven Mockers.”

“And she answered your question. Now what’s this about gang stuff going on?”

Heath shrugged. “It’s all over the news. ’Course, the electricity keeps going out and the stupid cable has been knocked out all day, along with the cell service being sucky. But they say that some gang went nuts last night about midnight, some kind of New Year’s initiation thing. Chera Kimiko on Fox News called it a bloodbath. Cops were late in responding ’cause of the storm. Some people were killed in midtown, which is freaking everyone ’cause midtown isn’t exactly gang central, so a bunch of rich white folks have lost their minds. Last time I watched the news they were yelling about calling in the National Guard, even though the cops are saying everything is under control.” He paused and I could practically see the wheels in his head turning. “Hey, midtown! That’s where the House of Night is.” Heath looked from me to Erik and then back to me. “So it wasn’t gang bullshit. It was those raven thingies.”

“Brilliant,” Erik muttered.

“Yes, it was really the Raven Mockers. They started the attack when we were escaping from the House of Night,” I said before he and Erik could snipe at each other again. “The news didn’t say anything at all about weird creatures attacking people?”

“Nope. They said a gang attacked people. Killed some of them by slitting their throats. Is that what those Raven Mockers do?”

I remembered how one had attacked me at the House of Night, almost making one of Aphrodite’s two death visions for me come true by trying to cut my throat—and that was before they got their physical bodies all the way back. I shivered. “Yeah, that seems to be what they do, but I really don’t know much about them. Grandma knows more, but they made her get in a car accident.”

“Ah, Zo, Grandma was in an accident? Damn! I’m so sorry. Is she gonna be okay?” Heath was genuinely upset. He was a big favorite of Grandma’s and had gone out to her lavender farm with me more times than I could count.

“She’s going to be okay. She has to be,” I said firmly. “The Benedictine nuns are taking care of her in the basement under their abbey over there at Lewis and Twenty-first.”

“Basement? Nuns? Huh? Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?”

“She was before Kalona rose and the Raven Mockers got their nasty part-human, part-bird bodies back.”

His face squidged up. “Part human, part bird? That sounds creepy.”

“It’s worse than you can imagine, and they’re big, too. And mean. Okay, Heath, you have to listen to me. Kalona is an immortal, a fallen angel.”

“By ‘fallen’ you mean that he’s not a good guy anymore and doesn’t float around with wings playing a harp?”

“He has wings. Big black ones,” Erik said. “But he’s not a good guy, and everything we know about him says he’s always been evil.”

“No, he hasn’t.” Okay, my mouth said that, but I really hadn’t meant it to.

Both guys gawked at me. I smiled nervously.

“Well, uh, according to my grandma, Kalona used to be an angel, so I guess I just figured that he used to be a good guy. I mean, a long time ago.”

“I think we should just assume he’s evil. Totally evil,” Erik said.

“A bunch of people were hurt last night. I don’t know how many killed, but it was bad. If this Kalona guy is behind it, I’d say he’s evil,” Heath said.

“Okay, yeah, well, you guys are probably right,” I said. What the hell was the matter with me? I knew better than just about anyone how evil Kalona was! I’d felt his dark power. I knew Neferet was all mixed up with him, so mixed up with him that she’d decided to turn her back on Nyx. Okay, all of that definitely spelled E-V-I-L.

“Hang on. I almost forgot about this.” Erik hurried back to his chair and Heath and I followed him. From the shadow beside it, he pulled out the ginormic boom box radio-cassette-CD monstrosity. “Let me see if I can get anything in.” He messed with the enormous silver knobs, and pretty soon a very staticky Channel 8 came on. The announcer was being all serious and talking quickly.

“To repeat our special report on the gang violence in midtown Tulsa last night, Tulsa P.D. reiterates that the city is safe and the problem under control. To quote the chief of police, ‘It was an initiation ritual by a new gang that calls itself Mockers. Leaders of the gang have been arrested and the streets of midtown Tulsa are, once again, safe for our citizens.’” The newsman continued,

“We have one more community announcement: All House of Night staff and students have been recalled to the school due to the impending weather. Again, all House of Night staff and students have been asked to return to school. Stay tuned for updates. We return you to our scheduled programming.”

“There was no gang in midtown last night,” I said. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

“She fixed it. She manipulated the press and probably the public, too,” Erik said, looking grim.

“Is the ‘she’ that High Priestess who messed with my mind?” Heath asked me.

“No,” Erik said.

“Yes,” I said at the same time. I frowned at Erik. “He needs to know the truth to protect himself.”

“The less he knows, the better it is for him,” Erik insisted.

“No, see, that’s what I thought before, and that’s why everyone was so mad at me. That’s also why I made some major mistakes.” I looked from Erik to Heath. “If I hadn’t kept so many secrets and had trusted my friends to handle themselves, I might have talked more and messed up less.”

Erik sighed. “Okay, I see your point.” He looked at Heath. “Her name is Neferet. She’s the High Priestess at the House of Night. She’s powerful. Very powerful. And she’s psychic.”

“Yeah, I already know she can do stuff with her mind. That’s how she messed with me. She made me forget chunks of things that happened. I’ve just started to remember them.”

“Does it make your head hurt?” I asked him, remembering the pain I’d had to work through when I’d broken the memory blocks Neferet had put in my mind.

“Yeah. It hurts, but it’s getting a lot better.” He smiled his familiar, forgiving smile and my heart squeezed.

“Neferet is also some kind of queen for Kalona,” Erik continued.

“So she’s bad news all the way around,” Heath said.

“Bad news and dangerous. Don’t forget that,” I said. “Also, Kalona can’t stand to be underground. He couldn’t before he was imprisoned in the earth by Cherokee women, and now that he’s escaped, my guess is he’s going to be even leerier of the earth. So remember, you’re safe underground.”

“What about the Raven Mockers?”

I shook my head. “We just don’t know. None have come down here, but that doesn’t mean much.” I thought about the darkness in the tunnels below and the bad feeling it was giving me, but I didn’t know what the hell it actually was: Red fledglings? Raven Mockers? Some other faceless thing that Kalona was sending against us? Or was it as simple as my imagination? The only thing I knew for sure was that I’d sound like an idiot crying wolf if I babbled a bunch of maybes, which meant, for the time being, I kept my mouth shut.

“Well, it’s Saturday, but we don’t have school because it’s still winter break until Wednesday, and if this ice storm hits as hard as they say it’s going to, we might be out for the whole week,” Heath was saying. “It should be easy to keep safe, even if the Raven Mockers attack again and their attack moves from midtown Tulsa to Broken Arrow.”

My stomach felt hollow. “And they might. Neferet knows I’m from Broken Arrow, and she knows there are still people I care about there.”

“So she might send the Raven Mockers to Broken Arrow just to mess you up?” Heath said.

I nodded. “Especially when my group and I ignore the call to return to school.”

“But wait, Zo. You have to be at school around a bunch of vamps or you and all the rest of the fledglings will get sick, right?”

“I’m here,” Erik spoke up. “And so is another full vampyre. Not to mention Stevie Rae.”

“Isn’t she all gross and undead?” Heath said.

“Not anymore,” I said. “She’s Changed into a different kind of vamp, one with red tattoos. And all of the gross fledglings that tried to eat you—well, they’re red fledglings now, and aren’t so gross.”

“Huh,” Heath said. “Well, I’m glad your BFF’s okay.”